Steel wool holder



Feb. 21, 1933. D. TROMPETER STEEL WOOL HOLDER Filed Nov. 19. 1930 Dar/1p ZPOMFEYBSVENTOR ATTORNEY WEN ES i Patented Feb. 21, 1933 UNITED STATES PATENT osrlce DAVID HEW YOBI, 58816303 '10 0F BALDWIN, NEW YORK WWW,

. STEEL WOOL HOLDER Application filed November 19, 1980. Serial llo. 496,789.

The subject of this invention is a new and improved applicator for steel wool; and the leading object of the invention is to provide a very ine nsive and conveniently manipulated apphcator particularly designed for having a renewable working agent, preferably a mass of steel wool or the like, carried thereby.

A more articular object of the invention is to provide a simple and eflicient combination of a preferably bored handle, and a preferably unitary bent wire holder or tool for a mass of steel wool, such holder being of the resilient type and acting as a clamp to seize the wool when inserted in the holder and when the holder is inserted in the bore of the handle after portions at the outer end of the tool have been arranged embracingly of the wool, and when, thereafter, the preferably integral shank rtion of the holder has been inserted in sai bore and thereby has been squeezed together to grip the wool securely.

Other ob ects and advantages of the inven* tion will be hereinafter specifically pointed out, or will become apparent, as the specifi cation proceeds.

With the above indicated objects in view, the invention resides in certain novel constructions and combinations and arrangements of parts, clearly described in the following specification and fully illustrated in the accompanying drawing, which latter shows an embodiment of the invention as at present preferred.

In said drawing,

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of said embodi ment, gripping a mass of steel wool;

Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section, taken on the line 22 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a side elevation of a tool made of a unitary length of bent wire, viewed as in Fig. 2, but in expanded condition because removed from the bore of the handle; and

Fig. 4 is an end elevation of said tool, looking to the left in Fig. 3.

Referring to the drawing more in detail, the reference character 5 indicates a wood handle, which is bored as indicated at 5a,

50 and which desirably may include a metal ferrule surrounding the open end of the bore, as at 6.

The tool for coaction with such bore in the present case includes a unitary length of spring wire having an intermediate portion bent into an attenuated U-shapedshank 7, upwardly merged preferably into somewhat converging shank-prolongations 7'; such length of wire also having terminal subdivisions shaped to include a pair of oppositely extended lateral extensions 8, and which extensions here have end portions 9 which are ofi'set. Said extensions may well be arranged, as shown, to lie in substantially the same plane, and such plane may well be a plane perpendicular to the axis of the handle. Said end portions 9 are preferably doubly ofiset as illustrated; that is, oppositely, so that each extends toward the other extension 8 (Fig. 4) ,and also away from the plane containing said extension, this last-mentioned shap' being illustrated in the present case (Fig. 3 as such as to cant said end portions 9 away from the same side on said plane.

The mass of steel wool is indicated at 10.

As the parts are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the combination of the handle, tool and steel wool is complete, in working assembly; the shank portion 77' being squeezed together by the bore 5a of the handle, and consequently the extensions 8 being forced into close adjacency, with the result that not only is the steel wool clampingly engaged by and between said extensions but the end portions 9 are thrust at their points fairly deep into the wool, and at 35 the same time the natural resiliency of the wool is coacting with the tendency of the legs of the shank portion of the tool to expand to the condition shown in Figs. 3 and 4, to frictionally lock the tool in the handle.

When a new mass of wool is to be substituted finger pressure against the shank portions i, to force them abnormally toward each other, will release such frictional lockso that. the tool and the wool may be quite easily slipped out of the bore of the handle; whereupon the tool will sp open atthe extensions 8 so that the old wool may be easily wittlggrawn and a new mam of wool easil' y inm Considerable particularities of description, as to materials, art details, dimensions, ca acities and utilities may have been herein in ulged in, but it will be understood that these statements made with particular reference to that one, and the one now preferred, of the many osslble embodiments of the invention whic is illustrated in the drawing, are not in any way to be taken as definitive or limitative of the invention. Inasmuch as many apglarently widely different embodiments 0 e invention could be made without departing from the scope thereof, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawing shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limitin sense.

It is also to be un erstood that the language contained in the following claim is intended to cover all the generic and specific features of the invention herein described, and all statements of the scope of the invention which, as a matter of language, might be said to fall therebetween.

In other words, the scope of protection contemplated is to be taken solely from the appended claim interpreted as broadly as is consistent with I claim: In a device of the character described, the combination with a handle having a bore therein, of a tool formed completely from a single length of stiff spring wire, said wire being rcversely bent at an intermediate portion to rovide an elon ate shank including a pair of egs, said shank eing slidable into and out of said bore but said legs being urged to a greater separation at the outer end of said shank than the diameter of said bore by the inherent resiliency of said, wire, thereby to cause said legs to be frictionally seized by the bore when said shank is inserted therein, said legs adjacent their free ends and beyond the handle when the shank is fully inserted in the bore of the handle being divergingly bent away from o posite sides of the plane of resilient sprea of said shank, each said leg then being bent laterally of the length of the shank to provide elongate portions adapted to squeeze therebetween an interposed fibrous mass, such squeezing portions being substantially arallel and opposite each other but opposite y extended alon a line substantially erpendicular to said p ane, each of said legs 0 0nd its squeezing portion carrying a termlnally ofi'set portion, said offset portlons being oppositely bent so that both project substantially perpendicularly to said line, thereby to constitute spurs to pierce said fibrous mass and so prevent the latter when s ueezed between the squeezing portions from ifting relatively thereto.

In testimony whereof I hereby afiix my signature.

DAVID TROMPETER.

the prior art. 

